Accession Number:
AD0419803
Title:
THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF MICROWAVE SCATTERING FROM A CYLINDRICAL PLASMA.
Descriptive Note:
Final rept.,
Corporate Author:
MICHIGAN UNIV ANN ARBOR
Personal Author(s):
Report Date:
1963-09-01
Pagination or Media Count:
108.0
Abstract:
This investigation was concerned with the theoretical and experimental study of a modest temperature plasma obtained by seeding with low ionization potential elements. A detailed thermochemical analysis of nitrogen or air as the carrier gases and sodium, potassium, or cessium as the seeding elements was made. The results are presented for a range of seeding ratios and temperatures up to 4000 K. The experimental facility consisted of an RF plasma generator which produced a low velocity cylindrical plasma at 1 atmosphere pressure and a temperature of 2750 K. Seeding was accomplished by using an atomizer and aqueous solutions of the nitrates of the seeding elements. The phase and amplitude of 3 cm microwaves scattered from the finite length, cyoindrical, thermal plasma were measured by a microwave interferometer. These measurements were compared to the theoretical predicted values as obtained from an IBM 7090 computer program. A comprehensive discussion of the possible sources of error is included but consistent unexplained differences between experiment and theory remain. Author